JQ wins 2013 Nordic Championships
The annual 1/8th off-road Nordic Championships were held in sunny and hot Finland. This year the race was more international than normal with drivers from Finland and Sweden, but also Estonia, France, Italy and Germany. The race was incredibly close, with the fastest drivers being Joseph Quagraine, Ari Heinonen and Teemu Leino. In qualifying all but one round was decided with mere tenths of a second, often with all three drivers separated with less than 1 second after the 5 minute qualifying rounds. In the end Joseph Quagraine managed to TQ from Ari in 2nd and Teemu in 3rd. Throughout qualifying the top Swedish drivers, Christoffer Svensson and Andreas Edvinsson found their speed, and were looking stronger for the mains.
The 60 minute main was one from a Hollywood movie. Ari, Teemu and Joseph pulled away from the pack, but unfortunately JQ started having some engine tune issues after the first pitstop. After retuning it twice during the race, he lost touch with the leading drivers. Teemu took the lead and got a small gap on Ari. Until about 3/4 of the race was done, this was how they remained. Then things started, happening, fast. First Joseph ran out of fuel, and coasted over the line. After restarting, he was just over a lap down, in 5th place. He then managed to get back into 3rd, and onto the tail of Ari, one lap down. Then Teemu ran out of fuel on track. Ari inherited the lead. On the final fuelstop, five minutes from the end, Joseph and Ari entered the pits at the same time, with Mr. Quagraine one lap behind, and Ari flamed out. It took exactly one lap to refire, and Ari exited the pits right next to JQ. And at this time positions three, four and five were just a couple of seconds behind. Basically anyone in the top 5 could win the 60 minute main with only five minutes to go. At this time, Joseph had a good rhythm going, and was able to get into the lead, and hold it to the end in front of Andreas Edvinsson and Ari Heinonen.
Final result
1. Joseph Quagraine – JQ/JQ/HB
2. Andreas Edvinsson – Mugen/Bullitt/RB
3. Ari Heinonen – Kyosho/Alpha/AKA
4. Teemu Leino – HB/LRP/AKA
5. Mikael Johansson – Kyosho/OS/AKA
6. Marcus Sandberg – Mugen/Alpha/AKA
7. Tomi Salonen – Mugen/Ninja/AKA
8. Stefan Scheuenpflug – SWorkz/SWorkz/AKA
9. Fredrik Peters – Kyosho/OS/AKA
10.Rayan Medjoubi – JQ/nVision/Procircuit
11.Jarno Siltanen – Mugen/Novarossi/AKA
12.Simo Ahoniemi – Mugen/Novarossi/AKA
Source: JQ Products [jq-products.com]
